WORCESTER - Four or five dozen people stood under the hot sun
yesterday morning at the Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans Memorial to
watch survivors of an unpopular war, their hair and beards now gray, lay
a wreath to comrades who died young in battle long ago.

Some spectators jumped or winced at the crack of rifle shots when
the color guard fired a salute that echoed through Green Hill Park. The
small audience applauded politely after each local politician spoke
briefly, often in platitudes, about bravery and sacrifice.

One of the speakers urged the spectators to bring their families
and neighbors to the ceremony next year on Memorial Day.

For Vietnam War veterans like Dan Ruggieri of West Boylston, it was
a great turnout for the annual wreath laying ceremony at the memorial -
maybe the biggest crowd he's seen yet, he said.

Mr. Ruggieri, 65, was just two weeks out of high school when he
shipped out in 1967 for Vietnam, where he served in the U.S. Navy aboard
a destroyer. He went off to war as a teenager, expecting to return a
respected veteran like his father, who had fought in World War II.

But it wasn't his father's war. And he didn't get
his father's reception when he got back.

When his father got home and boarded a train, the conductor put his
hand over the coin slot, unwilling to take the money of a returning
G.I., Mr. Ruggieri said.

"With us, we'd be hitchhiking home, and they'd drive
by and throw bottles at us," he said.

Such stories have become part of the lore of the war - returning
veterans jeered

as the war grew more and more divisive and unpopular and
politicians took heed of the turn in public sentiment. But, in time, the
war passed from a raw wound upon the consciousness of the country to a
brief, unpleasant chapter in American history.

In recent years, Mr. Ruggieri has found himself in the unfamiliar
position of being thanked for his service by strangers, a sign largely
of resurgent support for the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.

Mr. Ruggieri has come to believe the war was a mistake, not worth
the loss of lives, but he remains proud of his service in Vietnam.

The White House issued a presidential proclamation last week
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, saluting its
veterans in glowing terms.

"We pay tribute to the more than 3 million servicemen and
women who left their families to serve bravely, a world away from
everything they knew and everyone they loved. From Ia Drang to Khe Sanh,
from Hue to Saigon and countless villages in between, they pushed
through jungles and rice paddies, heat and monsoon, fighting heroically
to protect the ideals we hold dear as Americans," the proclamation
reads in part.

The recognition was a long time in coming, and of little comfort
for veterans such as Ralph Simkonis of Worcester.

"They didn't do anything for us back then," Mr.
Simkonis recalled. "There's still a lot of Vietnam veterans
that have hard feelings."

He was one of the four veterans asked to lay the wreath yesterday,
representing the U.S. Air Force. Mr. Simkonis doesn't want the men
and women who died during the war to be forgotten, but he also seemed a
bit pained when asked to reflect on how the war of his youth is judged
from the perspective of an older, wiser man.

"You have to move on," he said, "but it still sits
there in the back of your mind."

Douglas Greiner of Worcester turned 19 in Vietnam, during the first
of his two tours at an Air Force base at Nha Trang.

Yesterday morning, the 63-year-old veteran walked to the ceremony
supported by a cane. He has cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a condition
he suspects may have been caused by exposure in Vietnam to the infamous
chemical defoliant Agent Orange.

"When I first got back, nobody would even look at us or talk
about what we were there doing. That was hard," Mr. Greiner said.

He lost a boyhood schoolmate from Worcester, Guy Jerry Protano Jr.,
in the war.

Mr. Protano was near the end of his combat tour in Vietnam when the
U.S. Army helicopter he was flying back to base in got shot down by
enemy fire, Mr. Greiner said.

Every year, Mr. Greiner goes to the memorial in the park to say a
prayer and run his fingers over Mr. Protano's name etched into the
stone pillars at the far end of the monument along with so many others.

Like Mr. Ruggieri, Mr. Greiner is upbeat, friendly and not bitter
about the war or the country's reaction to it. He wishes more
people took the time to learn about Vietnam, to remember the men and
women killed there, but he doesn't dwell on it or hold any kind of
a grudge all these years later.

But there is a kind of disappointment both men still feel to this
day, five decades later. It might have been easier to try to put the war
behind them years ago, but, for good or ill, it remains one of the most
vivid, formative times in their lives as they approach old age.

"I'm proud of it. I can honestly say that," Mr.
Greiner said. "But you saw how many people were here today. That
was a big crowd for us."

As he was speaking, his mobile phone rang, and he fished it out of
his pocket. Mr. Greiner told the caller that he'd have to call him
right back.

It was his older brother calling from the Midwest, as he does every
Memorial Day and every Veterans Day.

"He always says, `Thank you for your service.'"

ART: PHOTOS

CUTLINE: (1) The wreath laying ceremony at Green Hill Park brought
out more people than last year to honor Vietnam veterans. Lee F.
Bartlett Jr., 93, at left, a veteran of World War II, salutes. (2) A
participant folds his hands during a solemn moment in the ceremony. (3)
The procession walks near the pond to the monuments.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff Photos/CHRISTINE PETERSON

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